My husband and I have been on Atkins since February. We have done great! We are confused about the sugar content in products. We have been really good with making sure nothing we buy has added sugars in it. We look at the ingredients, and the nutritional facts list. We are confused because sometimes sugar appears on the nutrional facts list in grams, but there isnt any added sugar in the ingredients listed. What is the deal?

Some foods have natural sugars. Fruit for example. It's only ADDED sugars that have to be listed in the ingredients. I've done a double-take myself sometimes!

Natural Sugars can be found in almost anything. Look at the first 5 ingredience, if you see sugar listed, becareful!

The most common natural sugars are fructose (which somes from fruits) and lactose (which is found in milk and other dairy).

Make sure you know all the names sugar can hide under though. Soemtiems it can be very well hidden. Sugar, dextrose, glucose, evaporated cane juice, organic cane juice, fruit concentrate or juices, mollasas, honey, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sulacrose, and so on.

Thank you for all your replies, I have learned so much from all of you. For some reason, nutritional facts lables confuse me. I understand, and know to stay away from things with added sugars, and that some foods have natural sugars. However, at what point do we count the natural sugars in foods. Shouldn't they count as carbs? Or should there be a certain amount of sugar grams in order for them to count as carbs. This is where I am comfused.

For example, Brussels sprouts are made up of fiber, protein, fat and sugars.

On a label you'll see the the basic nutritional information



The sugars are part of the total carbohydrate count and you just count the total carbohydrates.

Karen

LC180,

Welcome to low carbing! I'm glad you're doing so well after two months. Looks like you've really lost a lot of weight! Congratulations!

To answer your questions:

1. You should count all net carb grams in what you eat -- not just sugar grams. To calculate net carbs per serving, take Total Carbohydrates minus Fiber. Sugar is just one component of total carbs.

2. It's still a good idea to look at the actual sugar content (even though you don't use it to calculate net carbs). If sugar is listed separately, it could be that there's added sugar (and it seems you're pretty good at checking for that). Now, many foods have natural sugars, and we eat them anyway (tomatoes, for example). But why eat more sugar than we have to? That's one good reason to check for added sugar.

Hope this helps! I was very confused by this issue myself when I started Atkins last November.

Thanks again for your replies, and support. Lets see if i have this right now. First of all, stay away from foods with added sugars (already really good with this). Secondly, its okay to eat foods with natural sugars as long as you dont eat too much of them. These added sugar grams listed on the nutritional facts list are already added into the total carb grams, so just count the carbs. Is this right? I hope so. This wasn't a problem until my husband and i were eating mixed nuts. The ingredients listed no added sugars but the nutrional facts list listed 2g. of sugar per serving. I said it was okay to eat them as long as there were no added sugars in them but he disagreed. Thanks again!

Sounds good to me, although I didn't think peanuts had natural sugars?? I could be wrong, since I don't eat peanuts much. You might want to check again for other forms of added sugar like High Fructose Corn Syrup, etc. as LadyBelle listed.